Yves Desrosiers | In the footsteps of Lhasa de Sela

The mourning was long for Yves Desrosiers, Lhasa de Sela’s first musical partner. Nearly 15 years after the premature death of the incandescent singer, he is now ready to unveil the album First Recordingswhich brings together their first tandem tests. Our journalist Alexandre Vigneault walked with him in the Plateau Mont-Royal, where it all began.

Portugal Park

The meeting place was obvious. On a splendid September afternoon, we met Yves Desrosiers at Parc du Portugal, at the intersection of Boulevard Saint-Laurent and Rue Marie-Anne. Already legendary because it is located just a stone’s throw from Leonard Cohen’s former home, this small square is across from the Darling bar. This same place used to house Les Bobards, a popular bar-show in the 1990s.

Yves Desrosiers says that this place was his “living room” because he spent so many evenings there at the time between his concerts with La sale affaire de Jean Leloup and those he gave with groups like Les quarts de rouge, Les blaireaux or Gogh Van Go. Above all, it was at the Bobards that he and Lhasa de Sela presented for the first time in public their renewed versions of old Mexican songs which led them to create Mexican-gypsy song tunes which made many hearts flutter.

“I knew one of the owners a little. He was looking for something for the happy hour. I told him, ‘I might have something,’” recalls Yves Desrosiers. So, we played there and, even in the chaos and the uproar, we got a great reaction. That’s what made us want to do other shows.” The guitarist recalls that a journalist who was there by chance later devoted an article to the singer under the title A star is born.

Back to the sources

Lhasa’s star, however, faded too soon: the singer was barely 37 when she died of breast cancer in 2010. “I found it difficult,” says Yves Desrosiers modestly, who admits to having experienced a long mourning period. At the first concert in memory of the singer, he remembers having had “a lot of trouble” writing a song.

It is only when highlighting the 20th^e anniversary of the publication of The Lloronain 2017, that he took steps to exorcise his pain. He listened again The Llorona, The Living Road And Lhasathree records where, despite differences in arrangements, he recognized his friend’s “way of being.” “It came full circle,” he says softly.

The musician already knew at that time that he had recordings from 1994 where he and Lhasa were beginning to find a musical direction — the same ones who compose First Recordingsto be released on September 27. Lhasa’s brother, who had a copy, had suggested making a record of it, but Yves Desrosiers was not keen on the idea. So that’s where things ended.

Starting from Parc du Portugal, we walk until we take Avenue Coloniale, heading south. “That’s where I lived, at the time we recorded the demo,” says the guitarist, pointing to a building located near Rue Duluth. The apartment was that of drummer François Lalonde. Lhasa and Yves Desrosiers worked in a room located at the back, on the alley side.

Having arrived in Montreal only three years earlier, Lhasa spoke little French at the time. She wanted to perform jazz standards, but introduced Yves Desrosiers to rancheras and other songs from the Mexican repertoire. He found that her singing was frankly more moving when she sang those tunes rather than Billie Holiday. “Her voice was different, she had something that I have never been able to describe,” he said. “It got to me.”

A page of history

During the early years of working together, Lhasa and Yves Desrosiers often lived two or three blocks apart, in an area between Saint-Laurent Boulevard, Saint-Denis Street, Duluth Street and Mont-Royal Avenue. As they walked up Saint-Dominique Street, the guitarist pointed out a small cottage, specifying that Lhasa had lived there. He asked that the address not be revealed, out of respect for those who now occupy the premises.

“It was a time when you could move from a five-and-a-half for $450 to a bigger, cheaper apartment,” the musician sums up. This part of the Plateau was very artistic and many musicians lived there or nearby. While Jean Leloup, another local resident, was fomenting The DomeLhasa and Yves Desrosiers were refining their approach.

First Recordings is part of that history. That’s why Yves Desrosiers ended up agreeing when Mischa Karam, Lhasa’s brother, revived the idea of ​​publishing the demos. “I find an energy of the time in them,” says the musician. These recordings show him moving from rock’n’roll to more swaying music, which was something new in Quebec at the time.

The musician assures that he does not feel nostalgic as he walks the streets where he created with Lhasa, Mononc’ Serge and Patrick Esposito di Napoli (both from the first incarnation of Les Colocs), as well as several other musicians. “My youth is still fresh in my mind,” he says. “It’s been a long time, but in my head, it was yesterday.”

Light at the Quai des brumes

We couldn’t finish without stopping at Quai des brumes, a must-see on the Montreal music scene in the mid-1990s. “Everything that was happening in those years came through here,” recalls Yves Desrosiers. He and Lhasa often performed at the institution on Saint-Denis Street, near Mont-Royal Avenue. “That’s where it all took off,” he says.

In 1996, at the time of recording The LloronaLhasa, Yves Desrosiers and bassist Mario Légaré, who had joined the project, began a series of Sunday concerts at the Quai des brumes. The increasingly favorable rumor attracted an ever-growing and, above all, interested audience. “There was not a sound when we started playing,” recalls Yves Derosiers.

Then the singer and guitarist were invited to perform on television on a show hosted by Christiane Charette. “Just a performance, no interview,” he says. The sequence, which can easily be found on the Internet, lasts barely two and a half minutes, but its impact will have been lasting.

Suddenly, the audience was no longer just a mix of friends, acquaintances and regulars. And it was full. From that moment on, that is to say the end of the fall of 1995, the guitarist began to believe that their little project started in his room on Colonial Avenue might work.

“When we finished recording The Llorona and he was ready to go out, I told Lhasa: ‘We roll the dice and we lose or we win,'” he says. The guitarist pauses, as if to savor a memory that relaxes his face and turns into a smile: “We won.”

World Music

First Recordings

Lhasa de Sela and Yves Desrosiers

Audiogram